Coil Pots

The second project I do every year with my young artists is to make coil pots. This is a great way to introduce how to connect clay to itself by scoring, applying slip, and blending. Sculptors begin by rolling coils, or snake like shapes, out of the clay. Next we shape them into circles that will be stacked on top of each other. Once all they coils are made into circles, the sculptors took tools and scored, or roughened, the tops of each circle. This changes the surface area of the circles so that there is a place for the watery slip to be applied. Slip is watered down clay that is rubbed on top of the scored area. Next the circles are stacked on top of each other. Once they are stacked, the sculptors use their fingers or smoothing tools to blend each circle together so that you can’t tell that the pot was made of stacking circles.

The next class, I showed to artists pictures of Native American pottery. We talked about 3 different themes that were painted on their pots. These were showing their family or ancestors, important animals for their tribes, and patterns of lines, colors, or shapes. The artists were able to choose which theme they wanted to paint on their pots.